Hime looks like an angel. Everyone loves her. She’s kind and helpful and everyone’s darling. On the outside. Inside, she’s a gold digger-in-training and is more concerned with looking like she’s a good person than being one.
In Volume 1 of Yuri is My Job! by Miman an accident brings Hime to a Yuri concept cafe based on a series of novels about girls in passionate platonic relationships at the German mission school “Liebe Girl’s Academy.” Hime is going to have work harder to maintain that perfect image than she ever has before.
Struggling with the complicated rules of comportment and behavior is one thing, but Hime has no interest in serving people tea and no interest in the daily specials. But she knows status when she sees it, so she violates the norms in order to ingratiate herself with the upperclassmen in the scenario. She’s a crowd favorite and her onee-sama is kind in public…but in private, Ayanokouji doesn’t seem to like her at all.
To complicate matters, Hime’s best friend, Kanoko, discovers her secret! Now she has to work extra hard in front of her besotted and naturally competent friend, who knows her true self. It seems like everything is working against Hime, who is just trying to avoid a repeat of the time she was hurt by someone who knew her secret. Until the past comes to haunt her in the form of…
Yuri is My Job! is a delightful romp in and out of the tropes of Yuri set in an elite girl’s school. The translation by Diana Taylor captures Hime’s struggles with Ayanokouji, the cafe rules and the random bits of German they use. The oversize format is much easier on my eyes. ^_^ I’ve mentioned this before – I do a lot of my manga reading at night before bed – how nice it is to not be reading 8pt type in Japanese. ^_^
The Kodansha Comics page for Yuri is My Job includes an interview with Kanako Umezawa, the editor-in-chief of Comic Yuri Hime magazine and an excerpt of my essay Why Is It Always Catholic Schoolgirls in Yuri?
Ratings:
Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 4 The cafe concept is Yuri, the story is not, until it is.
Service – 2 Goofy Yuri fan moments
Overall – 7 And I’m really hoping that <spoiler> happens in the future! (Spoiler: It does. ^_^)
When I reviewed volume one in Japanese, the only caveat I had was that the cafe clientèle appeared to be overwhelmingly male when we saw faces and clothes. I had hoped for an increase in female customers to more accurately reflect the readership of the magazine. That does, in fact, happen as the series continues. ^_^
Oh, so that’s where you got the images for that article. Thanks for the review, I always liked the classic yuri works.
I forgot to ask, is this the full yuri? As I understand it, manga is a direct parody of Class S, but the title and Yuri Hime imply that MC’s relationship will be romantic anyway.
It’s got romance going on behind the scenes at the cafe. As things stand, it’s a love triangle with an oblivious protagonist. The romantic feelings are treated earnestly and there’s been heartfelt discussion between characters about the situation.
The cafe concept is obviously based on a series very much like MariMite, but it’s an honest homage to that kind of material by a fan, for the sake of fans, and the manga doesn’t mock that idea. There’s comical elements to the manga, but it’s stuff like Hime’s two-faced nature.
It is good to hear, as Class S is usually used either for large doses of subtext and baiting, or to sharply criticize its influence on prejudices about lesbian relationships. So, if I understood correctly, the “play” of passionate friendship helps girls to develop romantic feelings for each other?
It’s not that the acting of the roles brings the feelings about.
This is quite spoilerish, in both cases of the love triangle that I referred to, the romantic feelings date back to interactions before working at the cafe. Working closely together does serve as a catalyst for change, in a disruptive, messy way.
It’s not really a love triangle in the way I define “love”. Kanako is besotted with Hime, and later someone will show interest in Kanako, but as I am reviewing this one volume, we try to avoid too many spoilers for future plot points.
In that case, this manga is even more interesting to me. I like yuri stories that have intrigue and evolving plot, and not just yuri couples as moe.
The story is ongoing and explores many tropes of Yuri in a humorous way. You’ll have to read the story to see what happens.
Well, your review has already motivated me enough, so I will try to follow the English license.
I ended up picking this up on the weekend – I hadn’t pre-ordered it, but the Okazu buzz got me interested enough to try it. (Plus I needed a reward for dealing with a leaky basement on top of a washer repair)
This was fun! It confused the heck out of me for a while at first, but my brain was tickled at puzzling out which versions of people were into which versions of other people.
They way switching between dialects was referred to, also made me think about code switching…for what seemed to me like light reading at first, I think there’s a lot going on beneath the surface, and can’t wait to see where volume 2 goes.